Suddenly Last Summer: A Mesmerising Performance Let Down by Pacing Issues
“Cut this hideous story out of her brain!” So crowns a climactic scene in Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer, performed this week by the Experimental Theatre Company at the Oxford Playhouse. The...
View ArticleAnna Karenina is fearless, spirited and surprising: A Preview
Staging Anna Karenina is a tricky business. For a start, you have to chisel down one thousand pages and repackage it into a two-hour spectacle, no mean feat for a text that needs no further...
View ArticleThree Men in a Boot: A Rather Sketchy Show: A Review
Three Men in a Boot: A Rather Sketchy Show was a hugely engaging evening from start to finish. It was at times silly and at others satirical, and a hyperbolic yet somehow still relatable show....
View ArticlePreview: OUDS New Writing Festival
Katrina Gaffney and Megan Husain attend previews of two of the New Writing Festival Plays – The Optimists and Proper Conduct. Both plays leave the reviewers excited and hopeful for the pieces that are...
View ArticleThe Oxford Imps: A Review
Bursting with youthful exuberance, the Oxford Imps dance their way onto the stage and are introduced to us by Giles Gear, who is in charge of opening the evening’s proceedings. Gear briefly warms the...
View ArticleThe Rising Stars of Croft and Pearce: An Interview
Hannah Croft and Fiona Pearce are two Oxford Graduates who have since become the comedy double act ‘Croft and Pearce’. Currently, they are touring a sell-out Edinburgh show and have also had their own...
View ArticlePeople Watching, Plumb Puddings and Spiders: The New Writing Festival Opening...
The New Writing Festival’s Opening Gala consisted of four scenes and one short play. These were: Ellie Siora’s ‘A Very Serious Scene’, ‘Sometimes Silence’ by Sarah Grunnah, ‘Aristeas’ by Linden...
View ArticleAnna Karenina is Given a New Lease of Life in the O’Reilly
There have been a hell of a lot of plays about Russia this term. We had Collaborators, all about Stalin, at the Pilch. Then there’s The Optimists, which is out this week at the Burton Taylor, featuring...
View ArticleThe Homecoming: A Freudian Reading Is a Bit Too Obvious
This is not a show to beat the fifth week blues. And frankly, thank god for that. Dark, cruel, and deeply sinister, this new production of the Harold Pinter classic is a delightfully absurdist tonic to...
View ArticleMade in Dagenham Preview: Up-beat Numbers, Infectious Laughs, and Political...
On Saturday I went along to the Simpkins Lee Theatre to see a preview of Made in Dagenham which is being performed this week in Oxford. The musical looks at the story of the 1968 Ford sewing machinist...
View ArticleTender Napalm: A Preview
This Saturday I went along to the Tender Napalm rehearsal and got to see two incredible scenes from the play. It is clearly an amazing piece of writing, exploring themes of trauma, sexuality and grief...
View ArticleOUDS New Writing Festival Reviewed
The OxStu Stage team cover the OUDS New Writing Festival and are impressed with the productions: The Parakeets (Derek Mitchell) – Katrina Gaffney Set in the cluttered kitchen of a shared flat, The...
View ArticleKrapp’s Last Tape and Rockaby: A Review
Krapp crouches over an inconspicuous cardboard box, he rummages inside it and then withdraws a slightly spotted banana. He stands, moves towards the audience and ever so slowly, without looking, peels...
View ArticleThe Nightingale and the Rose is an Intensely Dark Fairy Tale
The Nightingale and the Rose is reminiscent of a fairy tale, but it is far from a bedtime story for children. This adaption of one of Oscar Wilde’s short stories is dark, enthralling and raises...
View ArticleMade in Dagenham: Affecting, Thoughtful and Triumphant
On the 28th of June 1968, a group of female machinists marched on Whitehall, picketing for change, campaigning for gender pay equality, and brandishing a banner emblazoned with the legend ‘We Want...
View ArticleTender Napalm: An Intimate and Nuanced Production
Staging a play which revolves around the interactions of two characters, simply named ‘man’ and ‘woman’, as they build up a series of stories through dialogue is no mean feat. However, Barricade Arts...
View ArticleContractions Looks to Be Pertinent and Poignant
Contractions is a very important play. Focusing on issues of privacy and surveillance, it places a magnifying glass over the relationship between employers and their employees. The increasingly...
View ArticleSuspiria: Tense, Terrifying and Exciting
Suspiria is outrageously dramatic and unapologetic for the fact. Hannah Kessler, who has adapted and directed this show, describes it as “Enid Blyton meets Saw.” An intriguing premise. I was lucky...
View ArticleMarat/Sade: A Preview
Transforming the respectable, well-carpeted Christ Church TV room into a post-French Revolution mental asylum is no easy task. Nevertheless, the cast of Marat/Sade, in the three intense scenes they...
View ArticleContractions: Thought-Provoking if a Little Repetitive
Contractions is an intriguing play. It explores questions of privacy and surveillance, looking at the individual vs the corporation through a series of meetings between an employee, Emma (Sophie...
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